Two Tanzanian-registered ships are seen burning in the Kerch Strait, on January 21, 2019.
Two ships have caught fire while moving through the Kerch Strait separating Crimea from mainland Russia, after one of them was apparently rocked by an explosion. At least 11 sailors have died, Russian Maritime Agency said. One vessel was “allegedly struck by a blast,” which caused the fire that then spilled over to another ship, an official with the Russian Maritime and River Transport Agency said.
Clouds of black smoke can be seen billowing over a vessel engulfed by a blaze on YouTube footage, which shows the scene of the incident. Another ship can be seen floating nearby.
Some three dozen sailors managed to escape the burning ships by jumping off the vessels. At least 11 people died in the incident and 12 have so far been rescued from the sea. Eight sailors are still listed as missing.
The crews of the affected ships included Turkish and Indian nationals, the emergency services said, adding that there were no Russian sailors. Turkey confirmed that 16 of its citizens were aboard the affected vessels.
Between eight and ten ships have been sent to the rescue and are picking up the sailors, the emergency services said. The explosion might have been caused by a safety rules violation during the fuel transfer, according to some reports.
Both vessels were flying Tanzanian flags. One of them was a liquefied natural gas carrier and another one was a tanker. The fire broke out as the two ships were transferring fuel from one to the other.
Maritime traffic was not affected by the incident.
#RIP#marinelife#seafarers#navy#seawoman#seaman#merchant#fleet#tankers#rip#death#at#sea#fireonboard#fire

I’m so pleased that THE JACKSONVILLE’S SUNSET oil on linen 20 x 38 inches has just sailed to a new collectors in California. The Jacksonville was among the last ships I painted at the Navy Yard so it has special meaning for me. During the seven or eight year period when ships in the Navy were my focus, I painted several of the green vessels from US Shipping while they were in the Yard's two larger dock docks for repainting and repair: The Charleston, The Philadelphia, The Chemical Pioneer, and the Jacksonville- twice. When I was framing this painting, I contacted a maritime pal to ask about the Jacksonvilles whereabouts as it wasn’t coming on the ship tacker sites. He said simply “razorblades” meaning, scraped. I may have seen The Jacksonville before she sailed into the sunset to be chopped up and transformed into the medium-grade rebar we see everywhere as the skyscrapers sprout like dandelions. The Navy Yard is much changed since. In this painting the once ‘bomb proof' large Building 77 to the right now has windows going down to the ground floor and the slowly developing 60,000-square-foot food hall (the much awaited Russ & Daughters finally opened this fall!). Though the white ‘wigwam’ remains, everything around it including the oddly charming Freddy K (third slide) is gone. It was such a pleasure to paint around the Yard during the quiet years before the boom, the ‘opportunity zone’ status, and the new buildings that welcome the Tech-startup Incubator WeWorky Fashionista Disruptor AppDeveloper Class, along with some fine, blue chip artists, but miss the craggy old laborer and the sense of space. But hey, now I can get a bialy without going to Houston Street.
#bklynnavyyard#oilpainting#urbanlanscape#onsite painting pleinair painting #marinepainting#maritimeart#tankers#freighters#drydock#portofny#industrialny#workingwaterfront#USShippingPartners#pamelatalese#petroleumtransport#building77#thefreddyk#thejacksonville